Mary Woodruff was born 1843 in Bohemia. Her father was Martin Woodruff and she had a sister named Sophia(1842) and a brother, Frank(1851). Mary and her family immigrated to Milwaukee in 1860.
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| 1870 Census of Milwaukee, Wisc. |
She met and married fellow Bohemian Frank Peshek. They had seven children together before divorcing sometime after 1882; Sophia (1863), Frank (1868), Mary (1869), John Albert (1872), William (1875), Robert James (1879), and Rose M (1882). By this time, they had moved north, to Green Bay.
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| 1880 Census of Fort Howard, Wisc. |
Mary Woodruff remarried sometime after Rose is born, to a Frank Joseph Jolley, who then adopts Rose. It’s unclear what happened between Mary and Frank Peshek, and why they separated. The Federal census of 1890 was destroyed by fire, and the next census I have to go on is the state census of 1895. In 1895, Mary Woodruff Peshek is now Mary Jolley and she is living in Appleton, a widow, with her daughter Rose and another daughter from her second marriage, Jessie Ida Jolley.
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| 1900 Census of Appleton, Wisc. |
The four youngest Peshek children would still be dependent and living at home, but only Rose was adopted by Frank Joseph Jolley. Did Mary abandon her other children? Did Frank Peshek raise them on his own? I’m still looking for answers for this blank period of their life.
Mary resided in Appleton, until her death November 3rd, 1920.
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| Appleton Post Crescent November 3rd, 1920 |
aspen mitchell 